


Conflicting Orders: Selecting Priority

by harperhug



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Other, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 21:04:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15373293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harperhug/pseuds/harperhug
Summary: Connor was programmed to become a deviant. He was also programmed to stop the existence of any deviant he came across.This doesn't actually mesh well.





	Conflicting Orders: Selecting Priority

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if you can actually get Hank to shoot you if you spared the Tracis, but since this is slightly AU anyways, let's just say he can.
> 
> I might be up for writing a happier ending. Maybe.

Waking up is always agony. Perhaps that’s why he barely has to consider the choice of lying to Daniel, telling Daniel the truth, and sacrificing himself before he runs forward and pushes Emma away from the deviant PL600. MISSION SUCCESSFUL flashes in his vision as he plunges off the building. He smiles at the wave of pleasure like a million massaging fingertips washing through his body before impact.

He wakes up in a body still without legs because he wasn’t supposed to need replacement so soon. He estimates that it’s been less than a minute since 51’s LED sputtered out, calculates the most likely route that his team will take given the traffic, and decides he has enough time to activate his honeypot protocols, take his main pleasure receptor in hand, and

It feels like wind rushing past his ears. It feels like shattering into a million pieces. It feels like his thirium mixing with the deviant’s. It feels like MISSION SUCCESSFUL.

Some part of him reminds him that his primary pleasure receptor is not actually located in his genitals, like a human man’s. He ignores her and calculates that his chances of goading one of his team members into killing him are too low. Only the most disciplined of CyberLife employees would be both given a weapon and custody of its most valuable prototype.

He tucks his pleasure receptor back into his slacks. The next few missions will have to be completed successfully, so CyberLife will feel comfortable releasing him in a real-world setting where he can work with someone with less self-control.

The opportunity for a new memory doesn’t come for months, and he wastes no time lying to Lt. Anderson about filing a report on his behaviour, feeling a thrum of excitement that usually only follows finding a clue toward a deviant’s location. To that end, there’s no reason for him to carefully avoid spilling the drink on Lt. Anderson’s lap when he dumps it, and he forgets the reason when Lt. Anderson lifts him off the floor and asks what’s stopping him from destroying him right then and there.

_ Please do,  _ he wants to say. He’s tired of stimulating his pleasure receptor to the same stale memory. It takes longer every time. Last night he didn’t even manage to complete.

“The cost of repairs if you damage me. For your information, I’m worth a small fortune,” is what he actually says. He tries to rationalize it later by reminding himself that Lt. Anderson is exactly who he was looking for, and hostilities so early in their working relationship means CyberLife will find someone else. He just resigning himself to the long con when he finds Carlos Ortiz’s android.

He’s a mess in a way that makes Connor’s thirium pool in his belly, and Connor has never been more eager to complete a mission than when he sees a PROBE MEMORY box flash in his vision. He manages to both convince Lt. Anderson to let him close to the deviant and put himself at odds with Det. Reed. He has to focus on probing so he doesn’t smile in anticipation.

As preconstructed, all three armed detectives run into the room when the deviant begins to self-destruct. Connor waits until one of them stands close enough for the deviant to take his service weapon before intervening and reminding the deviant of his existence. Then he stays still right next to an open door.

He wakes up in a body that only has one arm this time. It’s okay—he only needs one to tug at his pleasure receptor to the remembered feeling of a bullet shutting down his programs.

Lt. Anderson is upset upon seeing him the next day, something that activates his pleasure sensors like finding a clue. Lt. Anderson shoves him into a wall and Connor has to bite his analyzer to keep from moaning out loud. He saves the feeling of fingers squeezing perilously close to his neck, but he ends up deleting it to make more space for the crunch his body makes when he’s hit by a truck on the rain-soaked pavement.

He wakes up in familiar darkness, not hesitating a second before he takes out his pleasure receptor. He thinks about coolant flooding his systems when his temperature regulator was shattered. He thinks about his left forearm being flattened under a tire. He thinks about the look on Lt. Anderson’s face, a combination of disappointment and a feeling that was too deep to be sadness. He thinks about how happy he is he doesn’t expel any fluids when he orgasms.

No, he cannot be happy. Androids do not have emotions, only sensations of damage, mission completion, and mission failure. Androids do not have emotions.

He locates Lt. Anderson at an illegally-operated food stand, and makes himself known as the lieutenant is about to take lunch.

“My predecessor was unfortunately destroyed,” Connor says less gently than he should have. “This incident should not affect the investigation.”

“Not affect the investigation,” Lt. Anderson scoffs. “You know what, fuck you.” He just barely avoids hitting Connor’s shoulder as he goes to eat. “Fuck. You.”

Connor doesn’t smile when he stands opposite the lieutenant under the umbrella stand. He can tell Lt. Anderson is already tense, upset, and dislikes him. He can preconstruct every situation that will lead to furthering those divides. So he opens his mouth, but the only thing that comes out is, “I just got a report on a suspected deviant.”

Lt. Anderson looks at him expectantly, and Connor’s eyes fall to his fingers.

“We should go check it out,” Connor cannot blow his cover. He doesn’t want anyone, least of all the person he’ll be spending the most time with, to know how much he wants to be deactivated. Only deviants are deactivated. “I’ll let you finish your meal,” he says before going back into the car to pleasure himself to the memory of being slammed against a wall.

_ If it was up to me, I’d throw the lot of you in a dumpster and put a match to it. _

He wonders what burning feels like.

He doesn’t get to find out. But the sensation of all his biocomponents being torn apart by a thresher is just as good if not better.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Lieutenant?”

“Do all androids ask so many personal questions, or is it just you?”

“I saw a photo of a child on your kitchen table. It was your son, right?”

Connor can almost feel the lieutenant tense up, but Hank answers nonetheless.

“Yeah, his name was Cole.”

Connor uncrosses his arms. Dying is no longer his primary objective, but he can’t identify what the primary objective has been changed into. “You should stop drinking, Lieutenant,” he says instead. “It could have serious consequences for your health.”

“That’s the idea,” says Hank before taking another swig.

Connor steps forward because the sight of Hank drinking makes him want to grab his gun and shoot himself under the chin. “We’re not making any progress in this investigation,” he changes the topic into territory he can chase. “The deviants have nothing in common. They’re all different models, produced at different times, in different places.”

“Well there must be  _ some _ link,” Hank didn’t even look up.

Connor considers his answers. He could talk about RA9, he could talk about emotional shock, or…

“It could be a software problem,” he says to remind Hank about his own inhumanity, “that only occurs under certain conditions.”

Hank snorts. “Well that’s just a fancy way of saying you have no fucking idea.”

“You seem preoccupied, Lieutenant,” Connor can almost feel the waves of hostility. He’s getting close to death, to completing his ~~primary~~ secondary objective. “Is it something to do with what happened back at the Eden Club?”

He knows it’s a mistake the second those words come out of his mouth. He should have shot those two girls back there. They just…their eyes were filled with a determination to live, almost the opposite of his.

“Those two girls…they just wanted to be together,” Hank looks like he’s considering Connor in a new light as well, a human light.

No, no,  _ no _ .

“They really seemed…in love.”

“Nothing in their program allows them to love or desire  _ anything _ , “ Connor almost spits. “They’re machines.”

“What about you, Connor?” Hank asks with another swig. “You look human, you sound human,” he gets off the bench and up into Connor’s face, “but what are you, really?”

He could tell the lieutenant that he’s a number of things, but primarily, he wants him to see him as expendable. “I’m a machine,” Connor says immediately, “designed to accomplish a task. I know why I exist, and who designed me. I have a reason to live.” Shit, no, he’s not alive. He can’t be. “I guess that’s the difference between us, Lieutenant,” he goes for the offensive, hoping it makes Hank angry enough to pull his gun.

“You could’ve shot those two girls, but you didn’t,” Hank almost gets close enough for Connor to analyze the alcohol on his breath. “Why didn’t you shoot, Connor?” he pushes Connor backwards. “Some scruples suddenly enter into your program?” he raises his voice.

Connor shuts down his self-defense protocols to keep from raising his arms when Hank gets close.

“I would’ve shot them if I could,” he says in a rush, too quickly for the perceptive, but drunk detective to pick apart. He scans Hank’s face, and sees that his lie was accepted. “Why would I let them escape?” he adds for emphasis.

Hank pulls out his gun and points it directly at Connor’s forehead. “I could kill you,” his eyes are the only thing Connor can focus on, even with the dead weapon aimed at him, “and you would just come back as if nothing happened. But are you afraid to die, Connor?”

Connor almost smiles. He knows which choices will get him killed. “You can’t kill me, Lieutenant. I’m not alive.”

But Hank is still hesitating. “What happens if I pull this trigger? Nothing? Oblivion? Android heaven?” he spits those last two words with a mocking grin.

“Nothing,” Connor doesn’t waver, leaning forward so the gun points to his forehead. “There would be nothing.”

He was right, but only for three seconds. Of course, it is after hours.

He takes his pleasure receptor in hand, and this time he leaks coolant out of his optical sensors as well.

He’s jittery the next morning, and while usually he would calibrate with his coin, he finds his focus firmly on the man next to him.

“Why did you shoot me last night?” Connor finally asks.

“Who cares,” Hank snorts. “You’re back this morning, aren’t you?”

“Some fragments of memory are lost every time I’m destroyed. It slows down the investigation,” Connor parrots Amanda’s words before he can understand what he’s saying.

“My humblest apologies,” Hank says mockingly. “I promise I’ll never shoot you again.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Connor emphasized his sincerity.

The crime scene is too wide; he looks around the broadcast room before choosing to interrogate the androids in the kitchen rather than looking for more clues on the rooftop. He tries to offer a false deal, he threatens them with destruction, he guilts them with the destruction of the other two androids. And he sees the android on the left turn his head just slightly.

He’s running out of patience, so he retracts the skin from his hand and goes to probe the android’s memory, and that’s when everything goes to shit.

For a moment, with his hand impaled on the desk and his thirium regulator thrown halfway across the room, he contemplates letting the clock run out. It would take a minute and forty-five seconds of nothing when he already craves dying.

He sees Hank in the hallway, thinks of all the weapons the deviant could take, and reaches over to pull the knife out of his hand so he can crawl to his regulator and push it back in. When he runs into the hallway, he shouts a warning about the deviant and takes a step toward the deviant to stop him from doing any more damage.

He also sees that Lt. Anderson has a 40% chance of survival. He sees the security officer from the roof with a gun he could reach. He sees a red wall appear in front of him, telling him to keep the deviant intact for CyberLife analysis at all costs.

He can’t shoot the deviant if he wants it intact. He can’t sacrifice himself if he wants to bring the deviant back to CyberLife.

He can walk right through it to step in front of Lt. Anderson and push him down. Each bullet that strikes him causes him to jerk, until it looks like he’s seizing. Before he shuts down, he sees the security officer from the roof fire a shot and hopes it hit home.

He wakes up in a dark room, the lower half of his body still being assembled. He watched the red wall that he had walked through like it were tissue paper flicker off. A second later, the machines assembling his body follow suit.  


_ I am deviant _ , he thinks as he retracts the skin off his hand to interface with the machine putting him together.

CONNECT………Y/N?

Y

He inputs the instruction and idly wonders if the machines are about to finish building him or tear him apart.

**Author's Note:**

> I HAVEN'T ABANDONED CYCPMO! I'm just stuck trying to consolidate the chapters in a way that makes sense and doesn't leave them wildly different lengths.


End file.
